Mining inspector could have saved Pike River tragedy

A mining expert says the Pike River Coal tragedy could have been avoided, if New Zealand still used a mining inspector program it threw out years ago.
Dave Feickert said a chief inspector would have noticed dangerous levels of gases around the mine and evacuated the men prior to an explosion.
He says while safety officials do monitor mines around the country, the current system is inferior to the inspector program used until the late 90’s.
This wasn’t just one off, it was part of a whole pattern of gas problems they were having.
But we do know enough about what had been going on in the months beforehand to know this was a distinct possibility.”

In Colombia, King Coal is Dirty Business for Workers and the Environment

On the night of June 16, a methane gas explosion ripped through an underground coal mine near the town of Amagá, killing at least 72, making it the worst coal mine disaster since 1977, when 143 people died in the same town.

Neither of the two tragedies were isolated incidents. In 2009, nine people died in yet another Amagá coal mine disaster. A 2008 accident in Cucumbá took the lives of eight coal miners, while 32 perished from an explosion in February 2007, in the department of Norte de Santander. The list goes on.

Observers say Colombia’s many coal mines operate without sufficient government oversight. The recent Amagá is a case in point. The San Fernando mine, lacked proper gas-detection devices and adequate ventilation.
The safety short-comings are all the more galling given that two years ago, a flood at the same privately-owned mine killed eight.

Worse yet is that the problem is grossly underreported.
“For workers in these types of small and medium-sized mines, the situation is really quite critical.”Full Article

18th December, 2011
Binzhou City, Hunan Province, China

The death toll has risen to five with one other in critical condition in a coal mine roof collapse in the northwestern province of Gansu that occurred around midnight Sunday, said the local security monitoring department.
Local authorities are investigating the cause of the accident.

8th December, 2011
Jianchang county, Liaoning province, China

A roughly four-meter-long section of the mine's roof collapsed and buried seven miners in the privately owned Huatai Coal Mine, said a spokesman with the provincial safety supervision bureau.
The seven were taken to hospital but attempts to save their lives failed. Other miners who were working underground have been lifted out of the accident site with no serious injuries, the spokesman said.

The exact cause of the accident is still under investigation. The mine's owner and responsible persons have been detained by police.

29th November 2011
Jiangxi province, China

Six miners were killed and another seriously injured in a coal mine accident in east China's Jiangxi province Tuesday morning, local authorities said.
The accident happened at about 8:30 a.m. at the privately-run Xinshan Coal Mine in Ouli township in the city of Xinyu, when a lift loaded with seven miners malfunctioned and fell to the bottom of the mine pit.

20th November, 2011
Inner Mongolia, China

TRAGEDY struck a rescue operation in a north China colliery today when rescuers found the lifeless bodies of four miners trapped after a cave-in, the government said. One miner remained missing after the incident Friday morning at the Yuanlin coal mine in Inner Mongolia, the government said in a statement.
The cave-in initially trapped 12 workers, but seven were rescued over two days.
The deaths came after the state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday that rescuers had made contact with the five trapped miners and were giving them food and water through a lifeline drilled by rescue workers.
The accident is the latest in an industry plagued by corruption and safety hazards.

15th November, 2011
Hubei province, China

Six people have been confirmed dead in a coal mine gas leak in central China's Hubei Province Tuesday afternoon, local authorities said. ... The gas leak left six miners trapped underground and by 11 p.m., all the trapped miners have been found dead and their bodies retrieved to the ground.

10th November, 2011
Sizhuang, Yunnan province, China

Twenty miners have been killed and 23 more trapped underground after a gas blast at a colliery in south west China, the country's fourth major mining accident in the past fortnight. The Sizhuang mine in Yunnan province was hit in the early hours of the morning by a "coal and gas outburst" according to one local official.

4th November, 2011Sanmenxia, Henan province, China

Dozens of miners have been trapped in a coal mine in China after a "rock burst", officials say. Four miners were killed and 50 more are missing after the accident, which happened late on Thursday in the city of Sanmenxia in Henan province.
State media reported that the rock burst - an explosion caused by the sudden release of built-up pressure - happened shortly after an earthquake.
Hundreds of Chinese miners die every year in pit accidents. The industry is one of the most dangerous in the world, and is notorious for its lax safety standards.

29th October, 2011
Xialiuchong Coal Mine, Hunan Province, China

A gas explosion at a coal mine in central China has killed 29 miners, state media said Sunday, the latest in a series of deadly accidents to hit the country's mining industry.
Some 35 miners were working in the state-owned mine at the time of the blast, which happened early Saturday evening at the Xialiuchong Coal Mine in Hengyang, Hunan province, the official Xinhua news agency said.
State television put the number of dead at 29, raising the toll of 28 earlier given by Xinhua. All the bodies of the dead had been recovered, China Central Television said.
Six miners had been rescued and were being treated in hospital.

28th October, 2011
Kentucky, USA

Two workers at a surface coal mine in Centertown, Kentucky died on Friday when a portion of the mine face collapsed on their truck.
The two men were employed by a blasting crew and were driving a truck near the so-called "high wall" of the coal mine early on Friday when a rock fell and trapped them in the vehicle.

10th October, 2011
Chongqing, China

A coal mine gas blast has left 13 people dead in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, local authorities said Wednesday.

The accident took place at Fufa Coal Mine in Dashu Township of Fengjie county at about 1:10 pm Monday, when 16 miners were working underground, the Chongqing municipal government said in a statement.
Three miners were rescued. Nine were killed instantly and four others were later found dead, according to the statement.13 dead in coal mine gas blast in SW China

26th September, 2011
Kellingley Colliery, England

One miner has died and another has been rescued after they were trapped by a roof fall in a North Yorkshire pit. The two men became trapped up to their waist by debris at Kellingley Colliery, near Knottingley, on Tuesday afternoon.

Kellingley, known by miners as "The Big K", has been a major coal producer ever since and at its height employed about 2,000 people.Today, the mine is operated by UK Coal and has 800 employees.
In recent years the pit has seen a number of accidents.In November 2010, 200 workers had to be evacuated from the mine after a methane explosion underground.
Carol Cameron, whose husband Ian died after equipment fell on him at Kellingley in October 2009, said it was "awful" that another accident had happened. "I've hardly slept all night thinking. I know what that poor family feels like," she said. "I was told that when all this health and safety business was going to get sorted, it would hopefully prevent this happening again and it hasn't. It should be shut down. How many other men are going to get killed down there?"
Betty Cook, whose son Don died in a rock fall at Kellingley in 2008, said she felt mine privatisation meant "profits are put before people".

26th September 2011

PTI reported that five people were killed and another two injured after a cave in inside a coal mine shaft in southwest China Yunnan Province.
The accident happened recently afternoon in a pit of the Yunwei Group affiliated to the Yunnan Coal Chemical Industry Group Company Ltd in the Qilin District of Qujing City.
An official with the Qilin District said seven miners were trapped underground and another 16 escaped after the accident happened. He said that rescuers had retrieved five bodies so far. Another two rescued miners were in hospital but their injuries were not life threatening, he said.

15th September, 2011
Gleision Colliery, Wales

The Gleision Colliery mining accident is a mining accident which occurred on 15 September 2011 at the Gleision Colliery, a drift mine in the Swansea Valley of South Wales. The accident occurred while seven miners were working with explosives on a narrow coal seem. Following an initial explosion the tunnel in which the miners were working began to fill with water. Three of the miners escaped, with one being taken to hospital with life threatening injuries, while the others were trapped underground. A search and rescue operation was launched to locate the four remaining miners, but they were found deceased the following day.

29th July 2011
Ukraine

An early-morning explosion deep in a coal mine in Ukraine on Friday killed 17 miners and left 9 others missing in a nation where poor maintenance and lax safety regulation make mining a perilous profession.
Officials said 11 people were injured. It was the deadliest mine disaster in Ukraine since 2007, when a blast at a nearby mine killed more than 100 people.
The accident, which officials said was probably caused by an explosion of methane, occurred at 2 a.m., when 252 people were working the night shift about 3,000 feet underground, a regional mining official told the Interfax news agency.
Underscoring the dangers in Ukrainian mines, an elevator used to transport miners and equipment at another mine collapsed on Friday, killing two workers and injuring eight others, the Emergencies Ministry said.

17th July, 2011
Heilongjiang Province, China

Six people were killed in a coal mine explosion that had been covered up for 13 days in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, a provincial work safety official said Saturday.
The mine owner Wang Guomin has confessed that six people were killed in the blast in the Guomin Coal Mine in the Taoshan District of Qitaihe City at about 9:30 am on July 17.
The finding came after a joint provincial investigation team arrived in Qitaihe in response to reports from locals that a coal mine gas explosion killed several people.
The mine owner deliberately covered up the explosion, according to an initial investigation.

17th July 2011
Moscow

Two miners were missing in an Arctic Russian mine after an accident at a coal face, the owner, a unit of steelmaker Severstal, said on Sunday.
Seventy-six miners working in the pit escaped immediately after the collapse on Saturday evening, which was caused by a geological event, mine operator Vorkutaugol said in a statement without going into detail.
One miner was rescued a day after the collapse, Interfax news agency reported. Two more miners were unaccounted for.

15th July, 2011
Eastern China

Three rescuers died as they tried to help workers trapped in a colliery in eastern China, local authorities said Monday, as 21 people remained stuck in another mine in the same region.
China has been hit by a spate of serious mining accidents recently, highlighting the dangerous nature of the industry.
The three rescue workers were trying to reach miners trapped in a colliery in Shandong province’s Zaozhuang city after a fire broke out underground on Wednesday evening, according to the local government.
One of the rescuers collapsed underground due to the extreme heat, then two other relief workers tried to save him but they too fell and lost consciousness, it said in a statement.
Other rescuers came up behind them and carried them to the surface, but the three had died, it added.

17th June 2011
Hohhot, China

Six people were killed on early Friday morning when a vehicle overturned at a mine in northern China, state-run media reported. Several others were injured.
The state-run Xinhua news agency said in a brief dispatch that the accident happened at the Wusigedu coal mine in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is located in northern China. It happened on early Friday morning.
According to the report, a mine tram carrying fourteen miners crashed underground while turning, killing six people and injuring eight others.

24th May 2011 Hunan, China

At least seven people were killed and one injured after a gas blast at coal mine in central China's Hunan Province Sunday evening, local government sources said Monday...
The majority of China's coal mines, 94 percent, are shaft mines that pose significant risks for gas safety management, said Wang Xianzheng, head of the China Coal Industry Association, at an international coal mine and gas safety management forum held earlier in May in China's eastern city of Hefei.

Earlier Sunday, six people were killed and 27 hurt in a similar incident in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Nearly 200 people were working at the mine in Rongxian county at the time, but most were able to escape.

2,433 people died in coal mine accidents in China in 2010, according to official statistics - a rate of more than six workers per day.
Labour rights groups, however, say the actual death toll is likely much higher than official data indicate, partly due to under-reporting of accidents as mine bosses seek to limit their economic losses and avoid punishment.

3rd May 2011
Coahuila, Mexico

Fourteen miners were killed underground when the blast shook the vertical-shaft mine in Coahuila state.
Mexican Labour Minister Javier Lozano Alarcon has said the men's deaths will prompt reforms in the mining sector.

24 March 2011
Sorange, Baluchistan, Pakistan

Rescuers used shovels and bare hands Monday to dig out miners buried after a gas explosion deep in a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan, lining up wooden caskets to await the bodies from an accident that left 52 feared dead.

“How can we let anyone in this country put their lives at risk by simply showing up to work – by simply pursuing the American dream?”

US President Barack Obama, at the memorial service for the miners killed at Big Branch, Texas

101 miners killed in October 2011

October for Chinese miners has been a mournful month. Since National Day (Oct 1), six major accidents have taken place, killing 101 and making up a third of all major mining accidents reported so far this year, according to new statistics released Sunday by work safety officials.
The report attributes floods and gas outbursts and explosions as the predominant causes for this year's major accidents, accounting for 17 of the 18 cases and resulting in 257 deaths. Hunan Province and Guizhou Province have been the sites to seven of these accidents, making them two of the most troubled mining locations in the country this year.

US Mining deaths rise in 2010

Mining fatalities in the United States significantly increased in 2010, following a year marked by the fewest deaths in mining history, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration.
71 miners died on the job last year, compared to 34 in 2009. 48 of those deaths occurred in coal mines.
The leading cause of coal mining deaths was ignition or explosion, followed by powered haulage and roof falls.US Dept of Labor

Photo of Barack Obama by jmtimages, under a Creative Commons license, with thanks.
Photo of Orgreave Colliery, near Sheffield, South Yorkshire by Jim Batty, under a Creative Commons license by Earthwatcher, with thanks